CHICAGO — A former police sergeant named as a suspect in his wife's disappearance has received an unsigned letter describing a supermarket sighting of his wife elsewhere in Illinois, his attorney said Thursday.

Drew Peterson received the letter Wednesday but didn't open it until Thursday, attorney Joel Brodsky said. Peterson immediately called the Illinois State Police and his attorneys, he said.

Brodsky said Peterson hopes the letter, which describes a sighting of a possibly pregnant Stacy Peterson in Peoria, will lead authorities to his wife.

Pamela Bosco, a close friend of Stacy Peterson's family, scoffed at the idea. She said the family has received "tons of letters," signed and unsigned, from psychics and others claiming to know the missing woman's whereabouts.

"We got a letter saying she was seen in Florida," Bosco said. "She's traveling an awful lot, isn't she?"

The writer of the letter, dated Nov. 19, said Stacy Peterson wasn't alone when spotted in a Peoria supermarket and might have been trying to be noticed. She appeared to have "a little pudge," the letter writer wrote, asking if she was pregnant.

It has been more than three weeks since Stacy Peterson vanished. Since then, authorities have said they believe the death of Peterson's third wife, Kathleen Savio — whose body was found in a bathtub in 2004 — was a homicide staged to look like an accidental drowning.

Peterson has not been called a suspect in Savio's death, but authorities have said they suspect him in Stacy Peterson's disappearance.

Illinois State Police Capt. Carl Dobrich told the Chicago Tribune that 64 officers are now assigned full-time to investigate Stacy Peterson's disappearance and the death of Kathleen Savio.

Pension at risk
Dobrich also told the newspaper that detectives have found evidence Peterson may have violated Bolingbrook Police Department policies, violations that could be serious enough to jeopardize his $6,000 monthly pension.

Dobrich would not describe the alleged violations. Under state law, a police officer's pension may be denied or revoked only if the officer is convicted of a job-related felony.

Family of Stacy Peterson via AP file

This undated photo provided by her family shows Stacy Peterson, 23, of Bolingbrook, Ill., and her husband, Drew Peterson, 53, then a police officer with the Bolingbrook Police Department.